Saturday, 20 November 2010

I have been in contact with John Edward Havard, eldest child of the Inkling Robert Emlyn Havard (1901-1985) - who was nicknamed by the other Inklings things like 'Humphrey', 'UQ/ Useless Quack' and the 'Red Admiral' (with reference to a red beard Havard sported while serving in the Royal Navy during the 1939-45 war).

According to an early comment, Havard is the model for the character Dolbear in the Notion Club Papers.

Although I recognized several similarities (and also differences) between the biography of Havard and that of the fictional Dolbear, I was curious to know whether Havard's son saw any similarities in personality and manner between the fictional and factual versions.

In a nutshell - according to Havard's son, there seems to be some biographical similarities, and a couple of similarities of appearance, but on the whole there is apparently little similarity of personality or manner.

This suggests that Tolkien's use of real life Inklings as models for the Notion Club was based on scattered superficial resemblances rather than on any profound identity of character.

*

From two e-mails from John Havard to Bruce G Charlton - 19 and 20th November 2010. Quoted with the author's permission.

Page references are to Volume IX of the History of Middle Earth - Sauron Defeated, edited by Christopher Tolkien and published by Houghton Mifflin 1992.

*

John Havard speaks:

"On page 5, in what Christopher Tolkien assumes is an early draft, there is the first “List of Members”. Here Dolbear is explicitly identified as Havard, the only occasion that this occurs and Christopher suggests that the name is derived from a well known pharmacist in Oxford.

"A much fuller list of members occurs on page 11 at the beginning of the second edition of the Papers, but they now appear to have little relation to individual inklings, nor with the Colleges given or the dates of birth. The ages are some thirty years later than those of the 1940s Inklings and are not even relatively correct. My father was among the youngest of the Inklings while Dolbear is the oldest, and I know of no connection that he had with Wadham.

"The descriptions are perhaps more relevant. Dolbear is described as a chemist who concerns himself with philosophy, psychoanalysis and gardening. Father’s first degree was in chemistry and he did have philosophical interests. Also he had earlier practiced Freudian psychology at the Warneford. He had a fairly large garden though I do not think this was a major interest, he usually had someone to look after it for him. He is described as having a red hair and beard, which father did have when younger, and the nickname “Ruthless Rufus” which could bear some relation to Humphrey or the Useless Quack.

"Page 12. There is an entry for Night 54 which was written by Dolbear when the meeting was held in his house. Individual Inklings did visit us from time to time mostly for social reasons or to go for walks but I was aware of no meetings.

"Pages 18-20. This is the most extensive reference that I have been able to find. Dolbear contributes to the discussion on space travel making use of his scientific background. This is quite consistent with father’s interests, he did comment to Lewis about the text of Out of the Silent Planet and the other novels about space travel.

"The incident where he appears to go to sleep and wake suddenly sounds more like Alice’s Dormouse than anything I can relate to. (He falls asleep again on page 36).

"Page 33. Lowdham says “There is no difficulty with Rufus. The drink urge explains most of him”. This is no doubt intended to be jocular but relates little to reality. Father drank beer but rarely spirits.

"Pages 80 – 81. After the collapse of Jeremy, Dolbear growls “leave him alone”. This may be reference to father’s medical experience but “growls” does not ring a bell.

"I was somewhat taken aback by Dolbear’s directness and gruff manner as I do not recognise this behaviour as typical of father, though I cannot say what may have happened in many years of Inkling meetings.

"I did not find much of father’s character that I recognised in Dolbear when I was reading the Papers. I had the impression that Tolkien was more interested in providing light relief while he followed up the topics discussed than in any serious exploration of character."

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

I first read Tolkien's essay On Fairy Stories about 1975, and liked it a lot - except for the Epilogue, which made no sense to me. It still made no sense to me when I re-read the essay about three years ago.

But I can understand it now, having become a Christian in the meantime.

Indeed, I can now perceive that this is one of the most important things that Tolkien ever wrote - because it was apparently the point when he justified to himself his own longstanding desire to write Fantasy.

*

Epilogue to On Fairy Stories, by JRR Tolkien - excerpts with my notes in [square brackets].

*

"Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it.

"If he indeed achieves a quality that can fairly be described by the dictionary definition: “inner consistency of reality,” it is difficult to conceive how this can be, if the work does not in some way partake of reality.

"The peculiar quality of the “joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth.

"It is not only a “consolation” for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, “Is it true?”

"The answer to this question that I gave at first was (quite rightly): “If you have built your little world well, yes: it is true in that world.” That is enough for the artist (or the artist part of the artist).

"But in the “eucatastrophe” we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater—it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world." (...)

*

[Tolkien is saying that successful fantasy is that which generates the peculiar emotion of joy, from a 'turn' in the story that he terms the eucatastrophe (the 'good catastrophe'). He is saying that this joy comes from recognition of a truth, and that this truth is ultimately a human version of the good news of the Christian story.

[In other words, while successful Fantasy does indeed offer legitimate satisfactions such as 'recovery, escape, consolation' there is even more to Fantasy than this.

[Tolkien is stating that the reason for Fantasy's power to delight and inspire, is that it is a 'far-off gleam or echo' of Christian story - and therefore that this power comes ultimately from God - and not from the artist. It is divinely inspired - and not a product of craft or artistry.]

*

(Epilogue continued)

"I would venture to say that approaching the Christian Story from this direction, it has long been my feeling (a joyous feeling) that God redeemed the corrupt making-creatures, men, in a way fitting to this aspect, as to others, of their strange nature.

[Tolkien means that the Fantasy writer, he is talking of himself, has had the impulsion to write Fairy Stories implanted by God - or rather than God has used the desire (which is probably in origin a corrupt and prideful desire) for his own purposes.]

"The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories. They contain many marvels—peculiarly artistic, beautiful, and moving: “mythical” in their perfect, self-contained significance; and among the marvels is the greatest and most complete conceivable eucatastrophe.

"But this story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation.

[This is the key sentence. The 'desire and aspiration of sub-creation' which Tolkien himself experiences 'has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation' - in other words, Tolkien's deep longing to write Fairy Stories can contribute - in however small a scale - to God's plan for the world. Tolkien goes on to spell this out:]

*

"The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the “inner consistency of reality.” (...)

"But in God’s kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small. Redeemed Man is still man. Story, fantasy, still go on, and should go on.

"The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the “happy ending.”

"The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed.

"So great is the bounty with which he has been treated that he may now, perhaps, fairly dare to guess that in Fantasy he may actually assist in the effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation.

[This is, of course, precisely what the character Niggle does in the story Leaf by Niggle which - in most editions - accompanies the essay On Fairy Stories. Niggle's detailed picture of a many-leaved tree and its surrounding environment (or rather, his imagined ideal for such a picture) becomes real in heaven; is indeed added-to heaven, and assists in the salvation of human souls.]

*

"All tales may come true; and yet, at the last, redeemed, they may be as like and as unlike the forms that we give them as Man, finally redeemed, will be like and unlike the fallen that we know."

*

[Tolkien is saying that all real Fantasies will 'come true' in God's time, but we cannot know in advance what 'coming true' will entail except that each real Fairy Tale will be recognizably its worldly self, yet also transfigured into some unimaginably greater eternal form.]

Tuesday, 9 November 2010

Tolkien was a philologist by profession, and his professional career spanned the tail-end of the 'romantic' era of philology and the establishment of philology as a professional academic specialization - en route (as it turned out) to its fragmentation and extinction into linguistics, sociolinguistics and so on.

*

It is often forgotten that Nietzsche was a philologist in his early academic career, at a time when philology was somewhere near the zenith of prestige in academia.

At that point philology was something of a 'master discipline' in the German university system; a creative science which fused history and intuitive speculation in a rediscovery of culture and modes of thought.

Tom (T.A.) Shippey's The Road to Middle Earth is, of course, the indispensable study of Tolkien as philologist - and is probably the most important book ever written about Tolkien.

*

Shippey describes Tolkien's method of going from words to speculate on the roots of words, and from there to inferences about the kind of life which would have led to words having that set of association and connotations.

In this sense, the Tolkien cosmology began with his iterative speculations on a possible society which might have led to the word Earendil as it appeared in the Old English poem Crist.

Tolkien often asserted this in interviews - that the language came first, and the mythic fantasy served (merely) to create a situation which might have generated the language.

*

As might be expected, The Notion Club Papers is full of philology - both the main protagonists (Ramer in Part One and Lowdham in Part Two) are professional philologists. And Lowdham is, in this respect, the most like Tolkien.

Indeed, The NCPs served as the stimulus for Tolkien to invent (or discover) yet another language, following-on from Quenya (language of the high elves in the undying lands) and Sindarin (language of the grey elves of Middle Earth and the exiled Noldor): this time Adunaic (everyday langauge of the Numenoreans).

*

Among the real world Inklings, it was probably the marginal and occasional figure of Owen Barfield who influenced Tolkien most, in a philological sense (Tolkien seemed to have been utterly dismissive of Jack Lewis's dabblings in philology in his book Studies in Words; although he had good things to say - including a mention in The NCPs - about Lewis's partial invented language of Old Solar).

Barfield wrote a book called Poetic Diction, adapted from his BLitt thesis, that had a major impact on Tolkien, and the whole way he thought about words and history.

(As I understand it) Barfield explained that modern words differ from ancient words not merely in meaning, but in their whole nature - ancient words refer to things which have no equivalent among modern words.

So that a single ancient usage - especially of a word like 'spirit' - had numerous *simultaneous* connotations; which cannot actually be captured by a linear and sequential list of all the specific meanings of that word in its various usages.

*

This is exactly the point made by Jeremy in The NCPs when he talks of real history becoming more mythical - as one goes further back in time:

"Sometimes I have a queer feeling that, if one could go back, one would find not myth dissolving into history, but rather the reverse: real history becoming more mythical - more shapely, simple, discernibly significant, even seen at close quarters. More poetical and less prosaic, if you like." [Page 227]

*

I see one of the therapeutic aspects of writing The NCPs was a recovery of Tolkien's delight in philology, epitomized by the exuberant act of commencing to invent a new language.

Yet, somewhat ironically, even as he renewed his delight in philology, and even as he had (from 1945) just attained promotion to a more senior Professorship in Oxford (indeed, one of the most prestigious academic Chairs in the world), Tolkien was also turning-away from professional academic philology towards the philology of his own imagined world.

From onward, 1945 Tolkien barely published any heavyweight academic philology - although he would normally have been expected to do so. His best energies went instead into his creative writings, and into the philology which underlay them.

It is likely that a crucial change in perspective behind this came from the writing of the lecture and essay On Fairy Stories, during which he clarified to himself the validity, the importance, of sub-creation - that sub-creation might actually be more important than academic philology.

And of course history has proved him to be correct. Academic philology has disappeared, while Tolkien's sub-creative writing (including his 'old fashioned, romantic philology) has gone from strength to strength.

Monday, 8 November 2010

I have already transcribed most of this passage (which I described as wilfully obscure) in an earlier entry on theology in The NCPs - http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2009/11/notion-club-theology.html - here I will try and explicate it, somewhat, line by line. My comments are in [square brackets]:

"Dreaming is not Death. The mind is still, as I say, anchored to the body. [At death, according to (Thomist) Roman Catholic theology, the soul separates from the body - but this does not happen during sleep.]

"It is all the time inhabiting the body, so far as it is in anywhere. And it is therefore in Time and Space: attending to them. It is meant to be so. [While alive we are meant to function in time and be located in space - 'meant' here presumably refers to the divine plan for human life on earth.]

"But most of you [ i.e. Those of you who are Christian.]

"will agree that there has probably been a change of plan [As a result of the Fall, presumably - or perhaps as a result of the incarnation - I'm not sure.] ;

"and it looks as if the cure is to give us a dose of something higher and more difficult. [The cure, I think, refers to human life now, after the fall. "Higher and more difficult would then mean by comparison to how things would have been in Eden, before the fall. Or it may refer to life since the the incarnation of God as Jesus Christ, as contrasted with pagan of ancient Jewish life - the Christian life being higher and more difficult than either of these.]

"Mind you, I'm only talking of the seeing and learning side, not for instance of morality. [I think this probably refers to the transcendental 'goods' of truth and beauty, but not the other one which is morality. I think Tolkien means that God's intention with dream experiences is about exposing humans to something higher and more difficult in the realms of Truth and Beauty, not Morality.] -

"But it would feel terribly loose without the anchor [meaning the soul altogether cut loose from the body would feel terribly loose.].

"Maybe with the support of the stronger and wiser [I think stronger and wiser refers to angels, and the idea that the detached soul needs to be escorted and looked after by angels - which is a traditional belief found in some of the early Fathers of the Church.] -

"and how it could be celestial [i.e. if the soul was being protected by angels.];

"but without them it could be be bitter, and lonely [i.e. To be a lone soul cut loose from its body.].

"A spiritual meteorite in the dark looking for a world to land on. I daresay many of us [Perhaps he means those who did not get angelic assistance?]

"are in for some lonely Cold before we get back." [Before we get back may refer to purgatory, perhaps? I'm not sure.]

"But out of some place beyond the region of dreams, now and again there comes a blessedness, and it soaks through all the levels, and illumines all the scenes through which the mind passes out back into waking, and so it flows out into this life. [Tolkien means that God sometimes communicates with us in dreams, a foretaste of heavenly bliss.]

"There it lasts long, but not forever in this world, [Just a foretaste, not the full experience - although in this an Eastern Orthodox Christian would make an exception for some Saints, those who are considered to live for sustained periods in both heaven and this world.]

"and memories cannot reach its source. [Its source, presumably, is in divine grace and revelation - and not deriving from experiences which we might remember.]

"Often we ascribe it to the pictures seen on the margin radiant in its light, as we pass by and out. But a mountain far in the North caught in a slow sunset is not the sun." [That is to say, the blessedness comes from God, not from that which is illuminated by God.]

*

In sum, Tolkien seems to be free-associating on the question of what is the ultimate salvation-related human relevance of spiritual experiences in dreams.

Tolkien states that: "the cure is to give us a dose of something higher and more difficult" and that since modern life substantially blocks divine communications during the waking state (or at least it does so for many people, Tolkien included at this point in his life) by excessive noise, chatter and other distractions; this dose is given us - at least partially - during sleep.

This was a very important factor for Tolkien - that dreams were part of creativity, and creativity was (for modern men, who are advanced in corruption) a vital pathway of divine communication.

This links-up with his ideas about sub-creation - the role of fantasy. For Tolkien, the sub-creation of fantasy world is not just an entertainment, but has a profound theological dimension (as he makes clear in the closing passages of his essay On Fairy Stories, when he talks of the Gospel story and relates it to sub-creation).

What follows are my (informed, I hope) speculations about the nature of JRR Tolkien's psychological breakdown 1945-6.

My impression is that this was not really a matter of anxiety and depression, but a matter of alienation brought-on by overwork - in sum, Tolkien was so busy, so 'hassled', that he had become cut-off from the source of his creativity.

And that source of Tolkien's creativity was in dream and trance states in which he experienced images with perceived special significance.

(These images were, I believe, mostly visualized - as described by the character Ramer, and later Jeremy; but sometimes there was probably linguistic generation, of words and text fragments, as described by the character Lowdham.)

*

Tolkien (I believe) found himself so busy and worried by imposed tasks that (for the first time in his life - and probably the last) he was unable either to dream/ day dream or else unable to connect his dreams/ daydreams with the rest of hs life - and so his life felt meaningless and lost its purpose.

Fortunately, Tolkien seems to have understood very well what what he was going through and why; and his response was to take some time away from work (three weeks), have a complete change of scene, to create as much unstructured time as possible, and - via The Notion Club Papers - to return to his roots, his deepest and most spontaneous motivations, aiming to rebuild from this firm foundation.

His strategy took a few months to have a significant effect, but was completely successful - so much so that the NCP novel lost its raison d'etre and was abandoned unfinished.

*

Specifically, Tolkien's work was done at the meeting place of fantasy and creative thought with scholarship and reason.

Tolkien relied on the world of fantasy and creativity (which I believe he accessed in dream and also in a creative state of altered consciousness - a light trance) to generate the raw material of his creativity, which he then organized logically using his intelligence; and he also relied on the fantasy mode of thinking to evaluate his ideas - either to validate then as 'true' or to reject them as merely contrived invention.

So, Tolkien's world is, to an unmatched extent, both coherent and has a visceral base of reality - the world seems discovered rather than invented.

*

This therapeutic aspect of NCPs can best be seen in Part One of the published version - which is highly confessional in nature - but by Part Two the fictive element, the plot, has begun to take charge.

Tolkien's self-therapy via writing the NCPs is quite different in its aim from that of psychoanalysis - although psychoanalysis is alluded to via the character of Dolbear, who is stated to have such interests.

Freudian analysis assumes that dreams are a way to get part the mind's censor; by contrast Jungian analysis assumes that dreams are a method of healing the psyche, including learning how to heal the mind.

But for Tolkien, dreams (and creativity in general) are potentially glimpses of divine Truth - in the sense that dreams (and similar experiences of altered consciousness) can be ways that God communicates with a mind that is too-much distracted by the 'noise' and chatter of modern life - this much is made clear throughout part one of the NCPs.

So, for Tolkien to be cut-off from the source of creativity and truth-validation of dreams was also for him to be cut off from God. In other words, he had become too distracted and hassled by over-work to hear the communications of God.

*

The fundamental therapy of writing the NCPs was, then - perhaps - to re-establish communication with his creative roots in dream and unstructured day-dreaming meditation or trance - to heal himself by dreaming, and by considering and meditatibg-upon his dreams - especially those recurrent dreams and dream images which he had been experiencing for some three decades - since at least 1914 (when he painted the Land of Pohja).

The process does indeed sound superficially like Jungian therapy - but this is deceptive.

Tolkien was not (I believe) trying to recover his creativity (for example in order to re-commence writing the Lord of the Rings - although this was in fact what actually happened).

Nor was Tolkien trying to make himself calmer and less miserable (although this happened as well).

But I suspect the primary self-therapeutic purpose of writing The NCPS was for Tolkien to re-establish a proper relation to God; and that the flow of creativity and feeling of energy and purpose were 'merely' an index that the divinely-inspired messages were again 'getting through'.

"And over and over again, in many stages of growth and many different lights and shadows, three tall trees, slender, foot to foot on a green mound, and crowned with an embracing halo of blue and gold."

*

These are depicted, precisely, in a painting done by Tolkien on 27 December 1914 and entitled The Land of Pohja.

The painting is reproduced on page 44 of J.R.R. Tolkien: artist and illustrator, by WG Hammond and C Scull, Harper Collins: London, 2004.

Since the Notion Club Papers were being written in early 1946, this means that Tolkien had probably had his dream of the three tall trees 'over and over again' for a period of more than thirty years!

**

Note added 1 May 2013. It is worth noting that the 'dreary' Land of Pohja is featured in the Finnish Epic The Kalavela which made such a large impact on Tolkien (and also Longfellow - as can be seen he used the Kalevala metre for Hiawatha) .

Rarely can we meet together,Rarely on can meet the other,In these dismal Northern regions,In the dreary land of Pohja,Let us clasp our hands together,Let us interlock our fingers;Let us sing a cheerful measure,Let us use our best endeavours,While our dear ones hearken to us,And our loved ones are instructed,While the young are standing round us,Of the rising generation,Let them learn the words of magic,And recall our songs and legends,Of the belt of Väinämöinen,Of the forge of Ilmarinen,And of Kaukomieli's sword-point,And of Joukahainen's crossbow:Of the utmost bounds of Pohja,And of Kalevala's wide heathlands.

- it is fascinating to consider why Tolkien should have commenced writing this new book at such a time.

*

At this time, Tolkien was feeling ill, anxious, miserable - he was suffering from great pressure, responsibility, and over-work (due to doing two Professorial jobs at the same time - including teaching material he did not know well and disliked).

Yet, during all this Tolkien wrote, and re-wrote - scores of pages of text, and began the invention of a new language. (The story runs to about 150 printed pages in the History of Middle Earth, plus a similar amount of supplementary material on language etc.)

This strongly suggests to me that writing the NCPs was therapeutic to Tolkien - in some way it made him feel better - otherwise he would not have done it.

*

So, if writing the NCP was indeed therapeutic, then the subject matter and form of NCP is presumably telling us about Tolkien's deepest and most urgent satisfactions.

These include at least the following:

1. The Inklings - the great importance to Tolkien (at this point in his life) of the group of mature male friends who are fictionalized as the Notion Club.

2. History - the deep yearning Tolkien had to experience history.

3. Language - that Tolkien would begin to invent yet another imaginary language at this time shows how powerful was this urge - as Lewis said, he had lived 'inside' language.

4. Inheritance and heredity - Tolkien's conviction that his own tastes and abilities were substantially a product of the Suffield ancestors on his mother's side; and that his feeling for history and language derived from generations of West Midlanders going back at least to Saxon times.

5. Myth. The mythical aspects of history, language and heredity burst through from ancient times to transform the modern - these things are not bare facts but become rich, suggestive-of and replete-with personal significance.

The over-arching purpose of the NCPs is to link Tolkien's whole fantasy world with real history - to link the (much needed) spiritual truths of mythic reality (especially the emerging 'Lord of the Rings') with the mundane, materialist reality of modern life.

*

When reading the NCPs, therefore, it is fascinating to bear in mind the conditions under which the book was written; and to consider the degree of urgency which impelled Tolkien to write what he wrote, at the time he wrote it.

This idea strikes me as so obviously true, that I am amazed I haven't realized the fact before.

(Even if I read it somewhere, which I don't recall, I never realized it.)

The NCP's are structured like a C.W. novel - a novel about how the supernatural and mythical breaks through into normal everyday life.

This would explain why there is no character in the NCPs that is like Charles Williams - C.W. is present in the novel's structure, rather than its personnel.

*

The Notion Club Papers also, in this respect, makes a companion piece to C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength (THS) - which is often recognized as being Williams-influenced.

Furthermore, THS forms the final part of a trilogy which began with Out of the Silent Planet (OotSP).

It is well known that OotSP was the product of a game between Tolkien and Lewis in which they decided to write an example of the kind of book that they both liked; on tossing a coin Tolkien was allocated the topic of time travel - which led to the unfinished Lost Road story, while Lewis was allocated space travel - which led to OotSP, Perelandra and THS.

This bet, and the resulting stories, happened before WW II and before C.W. came to live in Oxford- therefore the initial stories (Lost Road and OotSP) were not affected by C.W.

However, by the time that Lewis's trilogy had reached THS, and Tolkien's Lost Road had undergone major revision to become the NCPs, then Williams influence via Inklings meetings had become profound.

*

So another aspect of Tolkien's Notion Club Papers is that they could be considered in terms of expressing Tolkien's views of the kind of novel which Charles WIlliams wrote. Tolkien's other fiction is either set in an imagined or an historical world; but in the NCP's both imagination and history are blended with a contemporary setting - each influencing the other.

*

However, unlike both Lewis in THS, and Williams in his novels, the themes of the NCPs do not include a focus on the warfare waged in this world by supernatural evil - this represents one of the important differences between Tolkien and his friends.

Tolkien disapproved of those who took a close interest in evil and its workings - and he objected to these aspects of Lewis's work.

Presumably Tolkien would have been made exceedingly uncomfortable by (what he would have regarded as) the dangerous fascination with magic and the occult which was recurrently exhibited by Charles Williams.